Light This Fire
by ImpishTubist
Summary: It isn't often that someone notices something before Sherlock. Lestrade watches over the recovering detective and tries to nudge him toward some conclusions regarding John. Paternal!Lestrade, John/Sherlock, post-TGG.


_Author's Note: Intended as a follow-up to "The Smell of Rain," but can also be read as a standalone one-shot. Set almost immediately post-TGG._

_I could not have done this without my amazing betas: Sidney Sussex, Archea, and Red Chapel. You were wonderful to put up with me and my constant revisions, and your suggestions helped make this happen. Thank you._

_Title inspired by the commander of space shuttle _Atlantis_, Christopher Ferguson, who said, "Let's light this fire one more time" upon liftoff yesterday. _

_Feedback always welcome._

xxxx

Sherlock wakes with an irritating ringing in his ears and cotton in his mouth and claws his way back to consciousness with the word _John _on his lips, though he cannot fathom why.

He blinks at the ceiling, awash with gold in the late afternoon sun, and without moving takes stock of himself. He notes the bruised ribs, scraped knees, throbbing head, and aching wrists. He has fallen, then, and hard; the injuries alone are enough to tell him that. But he was conscious at the time, for he made a concerted effort to brace his body for the landing.

He cannot recall why he fell.

His most recent memories are of the forum; of posting the comment and going to the pool. He remembers holding the prize aloft, gloating, waiting for the shadows to answer him; eager at last to meet the face behind the games.

He is not the only person in the world who gets _bored_.

So what – ?

And then he remembers.

xxxx

Lestrade stands in the kitchen of 221B, eating and leaning as is his custom. He holds his phone in one hand and taps out texts while munching toast with the other. He has not yet been home since the explosion at the pool; the only progress he has made toward personal care was a quick shower at Mrs. Hudson's and a rummage through John's things upstairs. Sherlock is far too narrow for any normal human being to wear his outfits, but John's clothes tend to run large and Lestrade was able to easily find an oversized jumper – well, oversized for the smaller Watson – that fits him decently enough. He feels a twinge of guilt at the theft – no, borrowing – of the clothes, and then tells himself that if John ever scolds him about it he'll be glad, for it will mean that John has made it home alive and well.

He looks forward to that day.

And then suddenly his field of vision is clouded by Sherlock, eager and desperate and gripping his shoulders with a strength that he certainly did not possess just six hours before. Lestrade nearly drops his phone in surprise and grabs at the wild detective.

"Sherlock! What – "

"Where is John?" The man interrupts.

"The hospital. What – "

"Moriarty?"

Lestrade goes cold, even though he has been trying to steel himself for this moment. "It was Moriarty, then."

"Yes, of course it was," Sherlock snaps impatiently.

"So what happened?" Lestrade kicks a chair out from the kitchen table and forcibly maneuvers Sherlock into it. "And leave nothing out, Sherlock. I want every detail; from the beginning."

Sherlock tries to get up. "Oh, we don't have time – "

It is Lestrade's turn to interrupt. "Yes, we do. We've got surveillance on John and on this place, but I can't help you further if you don't tell me what happened."

Lestrade drags over a chair and, with his forearms resting on his thighs, listens intently to the wild tale that spills from the younger man's lips. Sherlock fires off the details rapidly and it's all Lestrade can do to keep up, trying to string all the seemingly-unrelated incidents together into a semblance of meaning. And Sherlock's mind is working so quickly, blazing away at the speed of light, that he overlooks one detail – the most important one of them all. He skids to a halt mid-sentence, jaw working but no sound coming out, eyes darting from side to side. Lestrade has seen that expression only a few times in the years he has known Sherlock. He knows that no good can come from it.

Sherlock has missed something.

"You said – " Sherlock croaks finally. "You didn't know it was Moriarty. Why didn't – " He stops again, and it's strange to see Sherlock dumbfounded. Lestrade hopes it can be chalked up to residual effects from the painkillers they gave him last night at the scene, and not permanent damage.

"We didn't find any bodies, if that's what you're looking for," he supplies quickly. "Just – you and John. No one else."

"You're sure?"

"More than. Ask Mycroft, if you don't believe me. He had surveillance over the entire area." That's something Lestrade is still sore about, though he dares not say anything to Sherlock. He doesn't believe that Mycroft was unaware of what was going on, and doesn't understand why he didn't send help. "And before you ask, he's got security at the hospital, watching out for John. I told him – well, I thought it might've been Moriarty, even before you'd said anything, so I told him to put his best people at the hospital."

Sherlock regards him with an odd expression and says, "You are not as – unimaginative as you look, Lestrade."

"Thanks. I think." Lestrade brushes a strand of hair out of Sherlock's eyes and asks, "How are you feeling, though?"

"Fine."

"Right," Lestrade says, and doesn't press the issue. He continues to stare, though, and notes the eyes bruised with exhaustion; the broken skin across the back of Sherlock's hands; the flush that rides high on his cheeks. He presses a palm to Sherlock's forehead. "You might be running a fever. Can't tell for sure, though. Always was rubbish at that kind of thing."

"You worry _far_ too much," Sherlock snaps at him. Lestrade frowns.

"You'll do John no good if you run yourself ragged before he has a chance to properly recover."

A crease appears between Sherlock's brows and he starts to ask, "How – " He breaks off, rubbing the back of his neck. "Was he hurt badly?"

"Yes," Lestrade tells him. "But Mycroft says that he'll live. He had – er." Lestrade stops and struggles to remember. The past twenty-four hours have become a blur, and he honestly cannot remember a time when he was not terrified for the lives of his friends. It has consumed him, this whole situation. "He had some internal damage. He was in surgery all night, but he's out now. I'd take you down there, but Mycroft feels it's best if you don't leave the flat. Safety issues. 'Fraid I have to agree with him on that one."

"Living is not the same as recovering," Sherlock says impatiently, waving Lestrade's words away. "He will live, yes, but will he – will he be John?"

Lestrade's breath hitches in his chest and he clears his throat unnecessarily. "I dunno, Sherlock. I've been here the whole night. I was going to go down and see him, once I made sure you were all right."

Sherlock looks startled and his eyes narrow. "You've been here the whole time?"  
>Lestrade shifts uneasily.<p>

"Yeah, I have. I needed – to make sure you were safe," he admits finally. He reads the next question in Sherlock's face and says firmly, "I wasn't going to leave you in the rubble of that damned building for a second longer than was necessary, and I certainly wasn't about to leave you on your own on what has probably been the worst night of your life. So don't give me that look, Sherlock Holmes. I think I deserve a little more credit than that."

Sherlock's eyes flick to Lestrade's hands and the DI believes he can see him cataloguing the scrapes on his fingertips and the cuts to his palms, analyzing and piecing together data until he realizes what could have caused the skin to tear in such a manner. "You got me out."

Lestrade nods.

"And John?"

Lestrade does not know why that question is more difficult to answer. But he nods again, eventually.

"Why?"

"Because he's your whole world now. You need him. And, well, I need what you need, don't I?" Lestrade suddenly snakes a hand around the back of Sherlock's neck and pulls him close. "He's good for you, Sherlock."

"Do stop that infernal worrying," Sherlock says into his shoulder, and it may just be Lestrade's imagination but he could swear that the voice is overly-gruff. He tightens his grip instinctively.

"God, Sherlock – "

The man pulls away abruptly and fixes a scrutinizing gaze on the DI.

"Are you _crying_?"

"You're a bloody idiot, you know that?" Lestrade says forcefully. "Damn it, Sherlock, if you had died – "

"I didn't."

"But if you _had_ – "

"You know as well as I that it does no good to speculate on such matters," Sherlock tells him firmly.

"Yeah." Lestrade lets out a heavy breath. "Yeah, you're right. I just – stop doing shit like that, all right?"

"I promise nothing."

"Sherlock," Lestrade says in a low voice, "if you can't do it for me, do it for John."

And that stops Sherlock cold; wipes the half-grin off his face and makes him turn ash-grey as opposed to his usual ivory. He goes from firm to positively devastated in less than a moment, and it is all Lestrade can do to resist reaching out for him again. It's absurd that it should have taken a bomb to realize this, but it _is _Sherlock and he's never in his life done anything only halfway. Fitting, really, that this new chapter should have started quite literally with a bang.

Sherlock-and-John, born out of destruction and fire, for Sherlock isn't Sherlock anymore without John. This man before him is a shadow, a shade, a loose approximation of the detective.

"I'm sorry," Lestrade whispers. "I'm so sorry. I wish I could make it better, Sherlock, but I can't. So listen to me, yeah? For once in your goddamn life." The curse is soft and lacks a punch; he's just tired, so tired, and this entire night has almost been more than he can bear. He can weather the most brutal of crime scenes with an iron stomach and a firm stoicism, but he cannot bear the thought of a world without Sherlock Holmes. "Stay here. Get some rest. _Sleep_. And I'll make sure John comes home. Even if I have to drag him back here myself."

Lestrade forces the detective back to bed and then spends nearly an hour on the phone with Mycroft Holmes, bellowing for no less than five of his most competent men to keep watch over 221B. Only then does he consider leaving the flat, and when he does he makes straight for the hospital.

John is sleeping, as expected, but it's an uneasy rest. The man's eyes dart back and forth under his eyelids and his brow is deeply furrowed. He is in no shape to leave, not by any stretch of the imagination. Lestrade leaves his number with Mycroft's people and the nurses and the doctors – anyone who stands still long enough to take his card – and finally, twenty-four hours after this nightmare began, returns home.

Lestrade swims in a dizzy haze to bed and sleeps for what feels like an hour but is actually six, and when he wakes he finds that he has less than an hour before beginning his next shift. He has missed an obscene amount of calls and texts in the interim, but there is only one – well, seven, but they are all from the same person – that he considers important enough to respond to right away.

He carefully types out a text to Sherlock, his mind fuzzy with sleep and crowded now with guilt. He had not thought to text Sherlock after visiting the hospital the night before and doesn't know why; perhaps he thought that Mycroft, with all of his surveillance, would have been in contact with his brother.

Obviously not.

_John sleeping. Won't be awake until tomorrow at earliest, according to doctors_.

The response from Sherlock is immediate. _And if he doesn't wake?_

Lestrade considers his reply carefully for several minutes – typing it out and erasing and rephrasing it. _Don't think like that _is what he finally decides on, and receives nothing more from Sherlock. He hopes it is because the man is sleeping again; he knows that in fact Sherlock is probably pacing his flat, aggravating both the security team and his injuries. He heads over to Baker Street as soon as he can get away from the Yard that evening, having worried his shift away at what terror Sherlock might be causing in his current condition, both to himself and to those unfortunate enough to have to spend the day watching over them. Mycroft must compensate his men well.

"You're going to give yourself a migraine," Lestrade tells the detective that night as Sherlock analyzes yet another batch of details to death, speculating on Moriarty's whereabouts and the extent of his network and how does Mycroft know for sure that none of his men are plants from Moriarty's reserves?

"Quiet, Lestrade, I'm thinking."

"No. You're pacing. And it's bloody driving me mad."

Pacing probably is not the correct word; more like hobbling. Sherlock stumbles awkwardly from one end of the living area to the other, running his fingers through wild hair and causing it to stand almost on end. He has a sprained ankle from the fall – got it caught in some rubble, which immobilized the joint as his body twisted around after the explosion. It is concealed today by Sherlock's usual freshly-pressed trousers, but his bare foot is an ugly shade of purple and has swelled considerably since the DI saw it last. Lestrade shoves him onto the sofa when he next makes a pass of that side of the room and points a finger at the detective.

"You're doing John no favors by working yourself into the ground."

"I'm nothing without the work," Sherlock spits, but it is a tired line and one Lestrade has learned to ignore. "Let me do this."

"No," Lestrade says. "You're going to sit here and we're going to watch crap telly and in about three hours I'm putting you back in that bed, whether you want to go or not. You're going to sleep and heal and when John comes home you're going to be well enough to care for him. Understand?"

There is a hated stinging behind his eyes and Lestrade hurriedly blinks it away. He has not felt this way in years, worn to the very core of his defenses – not since his sister passed and that was fully a decade ago. He scrubs a hand furiously across his face and looks away – stupid, _stupid_.

"You're awfully emotional of late," Sherlock observes impassively. "Do try to get hold of yourself; you're no good to me like this."

Lestrade sighs and flops down next to the detective on the sofa, taking up the remote and flipping on the television. They fall asleep to the sounds of a particularly awful game show – well, Lestrade does, at least. He is dragged back to consciousness sometime later – his sense of time has left him, so it could be anything from minutes to hours – by a terse conversation in his ear and struggles awake to find Sherlock alert and snapping at someone on his phone. He has not moved from his position next to Lestrade on the sofa and his movements are agitated; his legs, twitchy.

Lestrade's first slightly incoherent thought is that he is glad he is not on the receiving end of Sherlock's fury right now; his second is that his hand is in the process of slowly being crushed. He blearily looks down to see that at some point Sherlock has taken it in his own and, though his expression remains coolly detached, he is gripping it so hard that his knuckles are turning white.

"Christ," Lestrade mutters under his breath and, with more effort than should be necessary, frees himself from Sherlock's tight grip. He sits there flexing the abused hand as Sherlock looks around, startled.

"You are an idiot," Sherlock bites into the phone and, seeing Lestrade awake, nods before looking away. "An overbearing idiot who – "

Lestrade grabs the phone without warning and says sharply, "Who is this?"

"Ah, Inspector; good to hear that you are finally awake," a smooth voice replies. Lestrade winces.

"Oh, it's you. Look, you were hardly any help to us when your brother was pinned under that rubble and feet away from certain death and now, unless you've got something to report on the condition of John Watson, I'm hanging up and you are _not_ calling back. Are we clear? Right."

Lestrade rings off and lobs the phone across the room, where it lands hard and skids into a pile of books.

"What was that about?" he asks bitterly, glaring at the phone.

"Difference of opinion," Sherlock replies stiffly. He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, steepling his fingers and pressing them against his lips. "He wants help with a new case. I want to see John. We reached an… impasse."

Lestrade snorts.

"And I thought _you_ had issues with social niceties. Look, next time he calls, tell him you won't do anything until John is home. He'll pull the best doctors in the country and John will be home in a matter of days; mark my words." Lestrade stifles a yawn with the back of a hand. "Now, how long was I out?"

"Four hours."

"Christ," Lestrade curses again. Sherlock looks around and Lestrade takes a small amount of pleasure in apparently having caught the man off-guard. "Why didn't you wake me?"

Sherlock frowns. "You didn't specify needing to be awake at a certain time. Also, going by your general condition and the schedule you have kept both here and at the hospital with John, I calculated that you have only received five, perhaps six, hours of sleep over the past forty-eight hours. An adult male requires six to eight hours every night in order to function adequately, and considering all that has happened I will require you to be – optimal. As much as you are capable of being, at any rate."

Lestrade blinks at him in bemusement and says, "I think – that I just received the highest of praises from you but I'm not sure; I'm still trying to work out whether or not I was also insulted."

He leans forward and buries his face in his hands, blotting out the soft light from the lamp next to the sofa. The warm, golden glow is sending tendrils of pain shooting from his eyes to the back of his skull, and he takes refuge briefly in the darkness provided by his cupped hands.

Sherlock reaches for a nearby book – the title is German, but Lestrade's decades-old and school-taught knowledge of the language is not enough to decipher it – and tells him, "There is food in the kitchen that has not yet gone off; John was to the shops a few days ago. There's also paracetamol in his bathroom cabinet."

"Hm?" Lestrade mutters. He has lost track of the conversation for a few moments, his mind wandering to other concerns: John; the likely mouse problem in his basement; when _he'd_ last been to the shops and whether there was anything in his kitchen that was not quickly on its way to becoming a science experiment.

"You have not eaten in several hours and as I have already pointed out, I need you functioning. You also have a headache, as indicated by your sudden aversion to the light though you have been awake for some minutes and should have grown accustomed to it by now. Also, you keep absentmindedly rubbing your temple." Sherlock flips through the book, skimming the pages. Lestrade wonders whether he can truly read at that speed and decides that he would not be surprised if that were the case.

"Dunno if paracetamol will be enough for this one," he mutters under his breath. The television is still on but the program has changed; Lestrade watches it blankly for several moments, mind wandering again to all the tasks that await him. He has a shift that starts in a matter of hours, a bomber still on the loose, a friend in the hospital and another falling apart in slow motion. He is forty-seven: too old to be crawling through rubble after a madman and too young to contemplate doing anything else. And the headache has taken root behind his eyes and is just short of blistering, which means that it will be a long time fading even with the help of medication.

The detective's eyes are starting to droop when he next looks over; Lestrade stuffs a pillow behind his head and watches with some satisfaction as Sherlock actually gives in and dozes off. Not long after, Lestrade kicks off his shoes and tumbles into an overstuffed chair, intending to grab a couple of hours of sleep before heading off to his shift. Sally will notice that he is wearing the same outfit from the day before; he cannot bring himself to care.

xxxx

Sometime later, Sherlock stands before the window and allows the night to close in around him. Behind him, Lestrade sleeps in a chair, legs drawn tightly to his body and arms folded across his chest. And somewhere John sleeps, too, alone in a room with only the white walls and an occasional nurse for company.

He doesn't know why that should matter. It's irrelevant data, useless in finding Moriarty.

Moriarty.

The game is different, now; why it should be, Sherlock can't quite pin down, but that's also irrelevant. He knows he _must_ find Moriarty – that hasn't changed.

But Moriarty's fate has. Before, Sherlock was curious, he was fascinated, he wanted to _play_. Moriarty had engaged him; Sherlock went along with it, following his clues with reverent glee. He didn't want it to end, not really, not when he still had so much to _learn_.

Now he does. He wants to end this and end Moriarty, and this frightens him in a way that nothing has before. Why should he want to end the only man who has kept him from the boredom, the tedium? It doesn't make sense; it lacks reason. Sherlock finds himself dwelling in the land of the irrational and his mind is a muddle; everything is a haze and there is no data, no evidence, nothing to back this up. He _knows_ he must end Moriarty, but this conclusion lacks the proper support.

Sherlock presses first one hand, then the other, and then his forehead to the glass. It is warm to his touch, still holding the heat of the previous day. His eyes rove over the shadowed buildings and the lights of the cars below, and this city is glorious, so _glorious_, when it is lit up with the bustle of the night. The streets that stretch in every direction are as busy at night as they are during the day, ceaseless in their hurry.

Just like his mind.

Only now the world is beige and no longer brilliant and this Sherlock can't understand. He has a puzzle before him, the greatest one yet, but the color has drained from his world and his mind, _his mind_, has ground to a halt.

_Whywhywhywhy_

What has changed? What is different?

He cannot think –

_Factsevidencedata_

_ No data for this._

_ Evidence invalid._

Lestrade mumbles something in his sleep, and Sherlock is ripped from his thoughts.

"Do shut up, Inspector," Sherlock snaps at him, and why, _why,_ is he doing this? Speaking to a man who cannot hear him? It's abnormal, it's useless, it lacks _logic_.

He turns back to the window and finally gives in against the crushing tidal wave, closing his eyes and opening his mind to the images he has tried to shove aside. He cannot think with them coursing through his brain; he cannot think while trying desperately to hold them at bay.

He curls his fingers into the glass, wincing as his nails squeal against it, and wonders if John is thinking of him, too.

xxxx

Lestrade wakes far before he is ready to a strange buzzing sound, and realizes that it is his mobile only after he has automatically answered it and brought it to his ear.

"Hullo?" Lestrade mumbles into the phone.

"Good morning, Inspector," the cringe-inducing, charming voice of Mycroft Holmes floats over the line. Lestrade barely suppresses a groan.

"You again. What d'ya want now?" The early hour erases all eloquence from Lestrade's speech. He pulls the phone away from his ear long enough to glance at the screen and then snaps, "It's three in the morning. What the _hell_ could you _possibly_ want at three in the morning?"

"Please, Inspector, I know that sleeping in that chair has put a crick in your neck that is making you slightly temperamental, but there's no point in taking it out on me. I did not order you to stay with my brother for the evening."

"Someone had to," Lestrade mutters. He straightens in the chair and lowers his legs to the floor, unfolding them from having been pulled close to his body. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and rubs his neck with his free hand. A quick glance at the sofa shows him that Sherlock must have awakened and retreated to his room. At least, he hopes that is the case.

"Speaking of my brother, would you be kind enough to go and wake him for me, please?"

"Why should I?" Lestrade snaps, his mind still trying to kick itself awake. He doesn't tell Mycroft that he is already out of the chair and on his way. Who knows what Sherlock could have gotten up to in the hours Lestrade has been asleep? "What's important enough to wake the both of us at this ungodly hour?"

"If you think for a moment, Inspector, I'm sure you can answer that question for yourself."

"John." Lestrade stops cold in the middle of the living room at this realization. No, no, _no_.

"Wake him, please."

Lestrade stumbles into the bedroom and feels for Sherlock in the dark, not bothering to search for the light. The detective, normally up at the sound of a dropped pin, doesn't wake until the third shake of the shoulder. He comes to with a violent start, sitting bolt-upright and nearly knocking heads with Lestrade.

"What do you want?" he hisses, sounding as alert as though he had been awake for hours.

"Mycroft," Lestrade says shortly, just as the elder Holmes says, "Put me on speaker, if you would, Inspector."

He swallows and fumbles for the correct button in the dark, wondering what on Earth Mycroft is playing at. Did he really want Lestrade as witness while delivering this news to Sherlock?

"Go ahead," he says softly, throat very dry. He can't see Sherlock's face in the darkness, but felt him stiffen at Mycroft's name.

"I have someone," Mycroft begins, sounding terribly pleased with himself, "who would like to speak to the two of you."

There are indistinct voices as Mycroft pulls the phone away from his ear. Then,

"Sherlock?"

The sandpapery voice is as sweet as music. Lestrade, weak with relief, sags against the headboard. Sherlock snatches the phone from his hand with something that Lestrade would classify as a yelp if he didn't know any better and says, "John!"

"'at's me." John sounds beyond tired, but Lestrade can easily hear the smile in his voice. "You… a'ight?"

Sherlock appears to have lost the ability to form sentences, so Lestrade jumps in. "He's fine, John. More than, I'd say. How d'you feel?"

"Mm. Good. 'S nice, here."

"I'm afraid our friend was recently given another round of painkillers." Mycroft is back on the line. Sherlock's face falls just a fraction; Lestrade brushes his knuckles against his knee.

"When can he come home?" Lestrade asks.

"Not for a few days, yet. We will keep you informed. Good night, gentlemen."

He is about to hang up. Sherlock looks shell-shocked, but his smile is the first one that Lestrade has seen in days and so he quickly says, "Thank you, Mycroft. And – g'night, John."

"Sleep well," Sherlock adds in a voice far too quiet to be his own. Lestrade is doubtful that the man at the other end of the line heard and is about to hang up when a voice that is distinctly John's – all warmth and tired happiness – says, "'night, Sher."

The rest of the name is lost to sleep, but Lestrade can see Sherlock's eyes brighten in the darkness. He squeezes the knee and then adjusts himself against the headboard, shoulder-to-shoulder with the detective, and when Mycroft is at last gone they sit in a comfortable silence. Sherlock is buoyed by the memory of his name said in John's voice and Lestrade is content with the knowledge that maybe – just this once – it will be all right in the end.

xxxx

It should have helped Sherlock, knowing that John would be all right. But in the following days Lestrade visits Baker Street on a regular basis to find that Sherlock has fallen – again – and aggravated his ankle. He still forgets to eat, forgets to sleep, and once even passes out mid-conversation. The DI has been throwing old cases at him, bringing files upon files of cold cases to Baker Street, anything he can find and sneak away from the Yard. Sherlock is looking for connections to Moriarty; Lestrade is looking for a way to distract the increasingly-erratic man. And one moment Sherlock is pacing, file in hand, rattling off details and making connections that Lestrade frantically scribbles down; the next, he is on the floor. He smacks his head against the side of a table on the way down and gives himself an injury that requires several stitches (administered by one of Mycroft's innumerable and faceless staff members, dispatched to the flat even before Lestrade can get a rag to Sherlock's head and his phone out of his pocket).

He is patched up and admonished severely by a furious Lestrade. It happens again three days later.

Lestrade eventually takes to spending every free moment at Baker Street. He all but moves into John's room, which he would find downright odd if he had time to actually think about the situation. But every moment that he's not occupied with work he is occupied with Sherlock. It's a constant struggle to keep the detective from doing lasting damage to himself, and even though Lestrade begs Mycroft to allow them some time outside the flat – a walk, a theater ticket, anything – Sherlock's brother remains firm. He is not to leave the flat; not for a breather, and certainly not for John.

All respect Lestrade gained for Mycroft that one night vanishes rapidly over those few days. Sherlock is suffering, and all the DI's usual remedies have failed: the work; the distractions; the comfort he offers in the middle of the night when Sherlock is covered in sweat and gasping, having torn his way back to consciousness from the depths of yet another nightmare.

"He's fine," Lestrade whispers one night after a particularly bad one. "You heard what Mycroft said."

They are again sitting on Sherlock's bed, the darkness wrapped around them like a security blanket. It's in these moments that he feels that he can truly _see_ Sherlock, and therefore does not begrudge the man in the slightest for having woken him. Five years is not enough for one person to truly understand the mad detective; not unless, perhaps, that person is John Watson.

But to Lestrade, to Donovan, to Mycroft, even probably to his own parents, Sherlock will forever remain a mystery. Lestrade knows that he will spend the rest of his life observing, watching, probing, because Sherlock is brilliant and wild and _incandescent_. He sucks all the air from the room the moment he whirls into it. He is the flame and they are unwitting moths who flit far too close.

Sometimes they will get burned; sometimes they will die.

And John knows better than any of them that Sherlock is worth the risk.

"He'll be home soon," Lestrade continues as the silence threatens to consume them. Sherlock is staring straight ahead, eyes fixed on a point on the wall that he cannot see. "And there won't be a next time."

He knows this is far from true. There will be many more _next times _and _maybes_ and _if onlys_ before this is over. John won't give it up for the world; Sherlock will never ask him to.

"He hates when I run experiments in the kitchen," Sherlock says finally.

"Have you ever done anything else?" Lestrade retorts, mind wandering back to a time several years previous when he would regularly come home to his own place to find that the detective had set up shop in his kitchen; he said the lighting was better or some such nonsense.

"We're always out of milk," Sherlock continues as though he has not heard. "I play the violin when he's trying to sleep. I abandon him at crime scenes."

"And if he asked you to stop – would you?"

"I'd want to." Sherlock turns his head in the dark to look at Lestrade. "Is that the same?"

"For you, Sherlock – yes."

Sherlock nods, but it doesn't make sense to him, not yet. Lestrade can almost _feel _the struggle to put all the data together; he can see the _irrelevants_ and _insufficient datas_ bouncing around Sherlock's brain.

"I lived thirty years without him," Sherlock says.

"Yeah, that's how it works," Lestrade tells him quietly. "You didn't realize anything had been missing." He can feel the frown and anticipates the next question, so he adds, "You'll get there, Sherlock. Keep going. And the answer to the question after that is _yes_. Yes, he does."

Minutes of silence pass. They go without speech for so long that Lestrade begins to believe that Sherlock has fallen asleep and takes great pains to extract himself from the bed in such a way so as not to disturb the man. But then a strange, strangled voice that comes from Sherlock's direction - but which cannot actually be his - whispers, "I miss him, Greg." Lestrade says nothing in return – there are no words that can fix this. Words cannot bring John back home, and not a one of them can make Sherlock whole again.

Lestrade settles himself against the headboard once more; Sherlock shifts after a beat of stillness and their arms brush. He eventually catches the DI's hand in another of his vice-like grips before he is tugged off to sleep once more and Lestrade squeezes back just as hard, realizing then that this cannot continue for another moment.

xxxx

Sherlock is awakened by movement, and keeps his breathing deep and his form boneless as Lestrade climbs out of the bed to return to John's room. The DI lingers for a moment, long enough to run his fingers, once, through Sherlock's hair. There is a sigh, and the man retreats but leaves the door open in his wake. That, Sherlock knows, is so he can hear if the detective gets caught in the throes of yet another nightmare. Sherlock's mind has been betraying him of late – forcing him to sleep and then ripping him from it; refusing to connect the facts; blocking all of his attempts to _see_. Even in sleep he is caught in an endless loop – the bomb, the bomb on _John_, that first white-hot flash of _something_ that coiled in the pit of his stomach when it was his flatmate who emerged from the shadows and not a stranger.

The same images play over and over through his mind, and they are truly useless. No help at all.

_JohnJohnJohnJohnJohnJohn_

He glances at the clock, bright, searing green against the dark of the room. It flicks to the top of the hour under his gaze and he thinks, _fifty-two hours._

Fifty-two hours without John.

He has never known such a useless waste.

Sherlock rolls onto his stomach and presses his face into the pillow – an old defense mechanism. The soft fabric enfolds him, blocking what little light is in the room and muffling all the sounds, cutting him off from the world so that he can maybe, finally, _think_. He spends his life overwhelmed with noise and pictures and little movements, little details, all crowding his brain and forcing him to observe. He can't turn it off like a faucet and the clamor beats ceaselessly in his mind.

_Ring – clean on inside, dirty on outside – regularly worked off – serial adulterer._

_ Phone – inscription – brother with drinking problem – estrangement._

_ Haircut – injury – tan line –army doctor –Afghanistan or Iraq._

_ John._

He wishes he could see the world as John did – _does_. He wants to know what it's like, and he's never wanted anything like that before. He has his mind, and everything else is transport. Everything else is irrelevant.

Except.

Except he would like to know what John thinks when he stares out the windows of their flat, for he sees the same city that Sherlock does and yet he thinks something entirely different; Sherlock can tell from the small smile that tugs at the corner of his lips. Sherlock never wears that expression when surveying the city, not unless he happens to glance down and notice Lestrade's car parked on the street below, and then it's more of a gleeful grin than a smile that reeks of contentment.

He wants to know why it takes John so long to do the crossword; he wants to know why John finds pleasure in such mundane activities as watching a movie. He wants to know what it's like to look at someone and _not know_ about them. He wants to know it, all of it, because that's how John experiences the world. Sherlock doesn't care what Mrs. Hudson thinks as she's reading the paper in the morning or what Lestrade thinks when he looks at him.

But he wants, oh so desperately, to know those things about John.

He wants to know so many things at once, and it's maddening and infuriating because he can't read John's mind from a look or a phone or a haircut. And that's never mattered before, not to him, but now it does.

Why?

_Keep going_.

His genius has always needed an audience; it found one in John.

And when that's gone – when John's patience wears thin and his fascination runs out – will he lapse again?

He knows the answer before the question has fully formed in his mind.

And that, too, never mattered to him before but it does now because – because of John. Because he doesn't think he could bear the look of disappointment on the doctor's face, real or imagined. He doesn't _want_ to know what John-disappointed-in-Sherlock looks like. He can't lose him – his blogger; his friend.

_You'll get there_.

Friend. That's a new one. But does John –?

_The answer is yes._ Sherlock can feel Lestrade's smile – _why, why? Lestrade isn't here –_and the disembodied voice whispers across his mind._ Yes, he does._

Sherlock realizes that this must be what it's like to go mad.

He supposes there are worse things in life.

Face still pressed to the pillow, he allows himself to be pulled down in to the depths of sleep once more, surrounded by _JohnJohnJohn_

xxxx

John Watson comes home on a day that is blustery and overcast; the clouds above London are heavy and threaten to open wide at any moment. Lestrade arrives at the hospital after his shift with the intention of visiting; he's been remiss in that duty as of late, occupied as he's been with Sherlock and the Yard. There's still no sign of Moriarty, not even a whisper, and while Sherlock hasn't gotten any more erratic, it's still a struggle just to keep him in one piece. They haven't heard from John since that first night, but Mycroft phones regularly with updates. But he doesn't tell them John is up and about; he doesn't tell them that he's been asking after Sherlock.

And so when Lestrade arrives that afternoon he expects to find John asleep, not on his feet and in the process of signing himself out. The DI isn't sure that it's the wisest course of action, but he knows better than most – though he would never voice this out loud – that right now it would take nothing less than a force of nature to keep John Watson from Sherlock Holmes. And, somewhere deep down, where his affection for Sherlock outweighs his concern for the well-being of others, he is delighted at the sight that greets him. They are neither of them complete without the other and it's not right that they should be parted, for this or any other reason.

"Inspector," John says in surprise as he turns to find Lestrade lingering in his doorway. Lestrade holds up a bag.

"Stopped by the flat on my way over. Thought you might like a few things from home." He gives a crooked smile. "I'd say, 'Sherlock says hi,' but you know as well as I that he didn't."

"How is he?" John asks quietly. He reaches for the cane that he now relies on and will continue to do so for some weeks, this time for an injury that is all too real.

"Better than he was; he got pretty banged up in the explosion. He'll be interesting colors for a while." Lestrade crosses his arms and stares at the doctor. "You sure you're up to this?"

The question is merely a formality, he realizes after the words leave his mouth. He _will_ be taking John home today, regardless of the answer.

"Quite sure." John gives a little shudder. "I just – need to be out of here. All that happened, all we saw; I'm crawling out of my skin right now. I need to be home."

Lestrade jerks his head in the direction of the exit. "Come with me. I'll fill you in on everything on the way there."

The drive to Baker Street is too short for all Lestrade wants to say – needs to say – and he finds himself skipping around the narrative, hitting the important bits and jumping back and forth to fill in the rest of the details as they come to him. He tells John about what happened after the bomb – how Sherlock had emerged from the rubble relatively unscathed compared to his flatmate. He tells him of Sherlock's aversion to hospitals, which John knows, and of the extent of his injuries, which he does not.

He tells him that Sherlock's absence from his bedside was not voluntary, and tries to keep the bitterness from his voice as he fills in the bits about Mycroft and his security teams. It seems the lack of information goes both ways; Mycroft has apparently told John very little in the past several days, apart from the fact that he was going to live and that Mycroft would appreciate it if the doctor would try to keep himself from harm in the future (for his brother's sake, of course).

It's almost – _almost – _sweet.

John bears it all calmly and quietly, though his mind must be foggy with medication and lack of natural sleep. The only question he asks is whether Sherlock is still in pain; everything else is secondary and he listens to it without interruption.

"You in pain?" Lestrade asks in return when they are finally out of the car and standing just outside Baker Street. He corrects himself. "A lot, I mean?"

"No," John says with a smile. "But thank you for asking, Inspector. I'm all right."

Lestrade nods and is about to make for the front door, but John's hand on his elbow brings him to halt.

"Wait," John says. The doctor then leans against the car, a hand subconsciously rubbing his sternum. His gaze falls on the second-story windows, devoid today of their usual occupant. "How is he, Inspector? I mean, really – how is he?"

"He's been through worse," Lestrade tells him, and it doesn't sound stale and overused because Lestrade had been there through it all, from first to last, saving Sherlock from himself while John was still a far-off, half-imagined idea. No one, not even Lestrade, can remember seriously considering that this man was actually out there –was actually a reality – this man who could make (who _made_) Sherlock better. "Going a bit stir-crazy, I'd say, but mostly I think that's due to your absence and the fact that Mycroft is the one who ordered him not to leave the flat. He'd be daft to ignore the obvious danger, but it still galls him that he has to listen to his _brother_, of all people."

John snorts. "Yeah. I've a feeling you and I _both_ know that he's perfectly fine with self-imposed exile."

He lets out a long breath that prompts Lestrade to ask him the same question and can't even muster a sad smile as he answers.

"Christ. I was going to die there, you know. I was going to be blown apart in a pool. Thirty-two years of life; that's all that it came down to. And you know what? I was all right with it, as much as you can be.

"And then I didn't. And it's all different now. I can't think – " he stops and shakes his head. "I didn't plan for – this."

Lestrade can offer him no words of advice in return. It all sounds trite to his ears – _No one does. Y__ou just keep moving on _– and will not be anything John hasn't heard before. And so he says, "Sherlock's waiting upstairs," because it sounds _right_ and brings a small smile to the corner of John's lips and that is enough for now. It's all he'll need in the end, if only he could see it. John-and-Sherlock; Sherlock-and-John. Impossible to have one without the other.

xxxx

Sherlock is sitting on the sofa when Lestrade enters with his charge, leading the DI to assume that he has not moved at all in the intervening hours. He has started on another book; Lestrade thinks the title is French but it is hard to tell from that distance.

Here in the flat Sherlock is unguarded, and the injuries he suffered at the pool are readily apparent. The top two buttons of his shirt are undone, revealing splashes of purple across the porcelain of his skin. His legs are crossed and one pant leg has ridden up. It reveals the swollen joint of his ankle, now blue and green instead of inky black but still aching. He forces himself to walk normally when Lestrade is around, but the pain is obvious in the tightening of his eyes and the thinning of his lips. Lestrade knows that later John will discover the injury to Sherlock's head, covered now by a flop of hair. He wonders what Sherlock will tell him to cover up the true nature of the injury; he wonders if John will believe it.

"Out of beans again, Lestrade," Sherlock says as soon as he hears the door open.

"Then perhaps you should stop using them for your experiments."

Sherlock's head snaps up at the sound of the unexpectedly familiar voice. Lestrade leans on the doorframe and crosses his arms, watching as a tired smile graces John's features and Sherlock swallows hard. The detective sets the book aside and gets to his feet.

"You're right," he says softly, and Lestrade about passes out from shock at the easy admission. He lingers by the sofa, hands buried deep in the pockets of his trousers. "I should… be more selective in the experiments I choose to run. It is unlikely that this one will provide any relevant – "

"Don't you dare," John cuts in suddenly. "Don't you dare try to change, Sherlock Holmes. Not one thing. I won't have it."

"Yes, John," Sherlock says quietly and finds that he is at a severe loss for anything else adequate to say.

Lestrade takes the moment to slip upstairs and retrieve his things from John's room. When he returns, the two still have not moved – have not even spoken again, probably. But the look on Sherlock's face tells him enough, and as he is about to step through the door the detective glances over at him. They lock eyes, and Sherlock nods.

"Now are you going to make an injured man hobble all the way over there on a bad hip," John asks finally, perhaps prompted by the change in Sherlock's expression, and his tiny smile has morphed into a broad one, "or are you going to come and say hello to me?"

Lestrade ducks his head to conceal his smile and steals out onto the landing.

xxxx

Mrs. Hudson meets Lestrade at the bottom of the stairwell as he is trying to leave the building. She has been listening from her door ever since she heard John come home and makes no effort to conceal this from the DI.

"How is he?" she frets.

"He'll be fine," is the answer, and Lestrade has no idea which one she is referring to but it hardly matters because the answer applies to both.

"And you?"

The question throws him, and he clears his throat and sticks his hands in his pockets in order to buy a few seconds. Mrs. Hudson, a mother as many times as she has been a wife, knows he is stalling.

"Do you have children, Inspector?" she says gently, and the answer comes a beat before the words leave Lestrade's mouth as his gaze subconsciously flicks to the stairs.

"Timing was never right," he tells her.

"The timing's never right, dear. Come on," she says, holding out her hand in order to usher him inside. When he hesitates, she links her arm through his and pats him on the shoulder. "We're going to go inside and have a nice cup of tea. You're going to call me Anita and I'm going to call you Greg and we're going to talk about the weather and your football team. I'm glad Sherlock has you, Inspector," she says as sad eyes meet her own, "and he's fine, now. You said so yourself. He's fine."

And Lestrade will never know the exact details of it, in the end, but he finds that doesn't care because Sherlock is afterwards well and whole and _good. _

Lestrade will never know that, upstairs, the clock on the mantel has struck two and though Sherlock is now standing before his flatmate, neither of them has made a further move towards a greeting.

Minutes pass, and all they can do is stare.

It is as though they are seeing each other for the very first time.

Sherlock scrubs a hand across the back of his neck, looking as close to uneasy as John has ever had the chance to witness and John simply stands there, watching. He sees. He may even observe.

"Hello, John."

John leans heavily on the newly-acquired cane, bows his head, and chuckles for no reason at all. It grows into a laugh, wild and pounding through his chest, and he stumbles on his injured leg toward a chair on the other side of the room that might as well have been an ocean away. Too far; too much.

And then he is in the chair, Sherlock kneeling before him, and they are both of them laughing – long and hard and ridiculous. John can hear his own in his ears, bordering on hysterical, high and skittering and the very same laugh that gets him teased at family dinners but he cannot bring himself to care because it is the one thing he shares with his long-gone father. He finds, as his flatmate rests his forehead on his lap and giggles – _giggles –_ into his knees, that he has never heard such a deep and glorious laugh as the one that rumbles from Sherlock's throat. It becomes his new favorite sound. He vows then to do everything in his power to hear it again. And again. And again.

Sherlock puts his hands on John's knees after they have laughed themselves out into a gasping mess and pushes himself to his feet at the same time John leans forward and says, "You know, I – "

Their lips brush.

Sherlock automatically notes the texture of John's lips and the smell of his breath – _drank tea; skipped breakfast_ – and wonders, absurdly, what his hair looks like when he first rises in the morning because he has never had the opportunity to see; John is fastidious in his morning routine. He commits it all – the observations, the question – to his hard drive, tucking it safely away in a corner of his mind where it can never be erased. It doesn't make sense; the information is useless, and yet – and yet –

And yet he was _wrong. _

John realizes his life must be the butt of someone else's joke; he finds he doesn't much care and lets out a huff of laughter. After all, he _would_ be the one to end up with a bomb strapped to his chest not in Afghanistan, but on home soil. He would be the man who needed - _needs_ - a sociopath to show him how to live again. He needs Sherlock like he needs air and water and a million other little necessities, but it's fine – all fine – because Sherlock needs him, too.

He makes Sherlock human.

Sherlock makes him better.

His breath grazes the tiny hairs on Sherlock's neck, causing them to stand on end, and the detective now wonders how he can go about eliciting that reaction – that small quirk of the lips, the tiny _huh_ in the back of the throat – on a regular basis.

Sherlock wonders a lot of things in the space of three seconds.

He hopes he has time to answer all these new questions. He fears that all the time in the world will not be enough.

John holds up his hand; Sherlock mimics the gesture. They press their fingertips together, one by one, John leading and Sherlock following, which is unusual but something the detective feels he can get used to. Then John lays his fingers along Sherlock's and the taller man closes his eyes, cataloguing, memorizing the heat of their hands and the hitch in John's breath and the soft _oh _that he cannot place until he realizes that it came from his own throat. And then their fingers are laced together and John is looking at him and yes, he has been wrong, wrong this whole time and he couldn't even see –

Lestrade saw. Lestrade knew. Lestrade brought John home; he saved Sherlock once again.

Sherlock finally dares to meet John's gaze. His blogger – his friend; his John – is smiling. It's the same smile he wears when Sherlock deduces his way through the most complex of crime scenes. Sherlock doesn't know what to make of that, yet, but he will. He must.

"Hello, Sherlock," John says finally in a low voice. "Hello."

xxxx


End file.
